The comedy writer looks back on the L.A.-based Seinfeld follow-up, what could have been, and being the "yada yada" guy.

Sixteen years ago, ABC debuted a midseason acerbic sitcom called It's Like, You Know..., created by Seinfeld writer/producer (and onetime Esquire contributor) Peter Mehlman. (You have him to thank for the popularity of "yada yada," "sponge-worthy," "double-dipping," and "anti-dentite.") Marketed as the Los Angeles version of Seinfeld, the show starred Chris Eigeman (Gilmore Girls, Whit Stillman movies) as a New Yorker named Arthur who moves to L.A. for two months to write his anti-L.A. book entitled Living in Los Angeles: How Can You Stomach It? In L.A., he hangs out with his good-looking friend Robbie (Steven Eckholdt), who became rich off his Pay-Per-Jew cable program; Shrug (Sex and the City's Evan Handler), an L.A. native and a trustafarian who's never "worked a day in his life and occasionally feels guilty about it"; the cute-as-a-button masseuse/process server Lauren (My So-Called Life's Rayanne Graff, aka A.J. Langer); and celebrity caricature Jennifer Grey, played by Jennifer Grey.

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Fresh off the lightning-in-the-bottle success of Seinfeld, New York native Mehlman had the clout to do any show he wanted. In 1997, he pitched ILYK to ABC; in 1998 Mehlman wrote the pilot and Seinfeld's Andy Ackerman directed it; and on March 24, 1999, the show aired. Mehlman took Seinfeld's observational humor and added his pessimistic view of L.A., through characters like Robbie—"That's what's so great about L.A.: You don't even have to be interesting." By the second season, the show began to transform from Arthur hating on L.A. to him respecting the city. Despite seemingly being another "show about nothing," ILYK was so much more. One entire episode depicted the gang recollecting what happened to them on December 1, 1997, the day Golden Warriors basketball player Latrell Sprewell choked his coach, P. J. Carlesimo. Grey gave the show carte blanche to lampoon her plastic surgery, including a bit in which Robbie admits to Arthur that he slept with Grey. "Old nose or new nose?" Artie quips. As on Seinfeld, the characters ruminated on non sequiturs like "Why is Jesus the only biblical figure with a last name?" and Robbie comes up with an idea for a black-people-in-space movie called Do the Right Stuff.

During the first season, only seven of the 13 episodes filmed actually aired, and despite the show getting a second season, after a sporadic airing schedule, it got canceled in January 2000. All 25 episodes are streamable only on YouTube, with no DVD release in sight. "When I think of all these people all of sudden finding the show, I'm thinking how are these people spending their days?" Mehlman tells Esquire.

After the abrupt cancelation of his show, Mehlman dabbled a little more in TV and attempted to greenlight more pilots, but nothing congealed. Mehlman has stayed busy, though. Last year he published his first novel, It Won't Always Be This Great, and is currently writing another one. He recently wrote a great essay for The New York Times, and started performing standup.

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Mehlman recently talked to us about his mixed emotions regarding the show, his arduous network experience, how he's taking "yada yada" to the grave, and how he produced one of the greatest sitcoms you probably have never seen. Here he is in his own words:

On the genesis of It's Like, You Know…

I don't know why, but the title came to me before the show. Part of it is definitely influenced by the fact that whatever I did was going to be compared to Seinfeld. I made it the other coast and I tried to make this city a big part of the show. Whereas Seinfeld, it's heavily associated with New York, but I bet if you took 10 of your favorite Seinfeld episodes, at least eight of them could've been in any other city. I pitched the show, and four networks all wanted it, and of course I chose the wrong one. The head of Dreamworks Television was divorced from Jamie Tarses [former president of ABC Entertainment]. The head of Disney was Michael Eisner, and the head of Dreamworks was Jeffrey Katzenberg, and they absolutely hated each other. A big part of all this hatred between the two companies ended up having the show being a midseason replacement. It was really funny because at the upfronts, all the ABC brass called me up on the phone here [in L.A.] and said, "Congratulations, we picked up your show for midseason replacement." I had already heard this. I couldn't believe I wasn't going to be on the fall schedule. So I said something like, "I'm supposed to be happy about Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place is on the schedule and I'm not?" They were really stunned and they were calling my agent saying, "You better whip Peter into shape, his attitude is terrible." I realized I had made a huge mistake by going with ABC in the first place, because by then Fox was sending me gifts and begging. If I'd gone with Fox, the show would probably still be on.

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ABC wouldn't let him continue to work with Andy Ackerman.

After the pilot they felt that me and Andy together was too much of a united front. For the first six episodes, especially, I was dealing with this director who they assigned to the show. He'd be yelling at the cameramen. Like, [does an impression of the yelling director] "Geez, do you think you could frame the shot in an intelligent way?" I'd never heard people talk to anyone like this. I had just spent seven years on the happiest set in the world. I felt like I should've had a firehose just connected to my back.

Mehlman didn't want It's Like, You Know… to be a carbon copy of Seinfeld.

I was really trying to differentiate a little bit, but the humor of Seinfeld was so perfect for me that some of the thoughts and observations were inevitably going to be comparable. I didn't feel like I had to adhere to the Seinfeld edict of never having any poignant moments or anything like that. I thought I could do whatever I want. I could throw in a sudden poignant moment or a serious note, like right in the middle of it. Not that I wanted to do that very much, but I enjoyed the freedom of it. Friends won an Emmy for best show in a year they were promoting every episode with some mournful music by Enya. I was always saying what's the big deal in making the audience cry? I thought if you could sneak in a poignant moment, it would be good, like if it was totally unexpected.

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On the show's L.A.isms that non-Los Angelenos wouldn't understand.

I thought if they thought it was funny, that they would be willing to learn. Seinfeld was not a very good preparation for a lot of what happened after. Seinfeld could get away with doing an episode about John Cheever—who knows who John Cheever is?—but I always thought, let people want to learn. They're willing to find out.

On why he cast Jennifer Grey as Jennifer Grey

I just loved the idea of having a real character that everybody knew. A real history. And Jennifer Grey, I was friends with, and she had a juicy enough past considering who she had dated, Dirty Dancing, and the nose job, and she was totally game to go along with it all. So she was kind of perfect. I told her if anything bothers you at all, just tell me and we'll take it out. I didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable about anything, but she was totally game for everything.

On casting the glib Chris Eigeman, who at first the network executives dismissed until Mehlman talked them into it

I just loved the way he spoke. He speaks so beautifully and he enunciates his words and he always seems, like, slightly annoyed. He wasn't what you would call a stereotypical New Yorker. He wasn't some gum-smacking guy from Brooklyn. Once after one episode, somebody in the studio audience came over to me and said, "I'm from New York and I don't think that guy is anything like a New Yorker."So all new Yorkers are like you? Even the studio audience had their casting opinion.

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On the "extraordinarily talented" A.J. Langer, who coincidentally is from Columbus, Ohio, just like her character

The first time I ever met Steven Spielberg I was in the editing room, and he was just walking through and he poked his head in [does a Spielberg impression], "Oh Peter, hi, nice to finally meet you." And then he saw the screen and he just said, "But who's the young girl?" I called up A.J.: "You're not going to believe this." I kind of regret not making her a little bit more like her character in My So-Called Life, a little bit more of a rebellious type. It was such a bizarre thing that I picked Columbus. I really don't know why. A.J. told me, "You know what? I'm from Columbus." Her mom grew up in Columbus. Until last year, I had Thanksgiving with A.J. every year. We're really close.

On his mixed feelings about the show, 16 years later

For the most part, I look back on the whole experience pretty fondly. Oddly enough, I kind of enjoyed being a boss and having all these people under me. It was incredibly touching that all these people worked so hard. I feel like I handled myself pretty well as the showrunner. During rehearsals sometimes I would be asking my cameramen if they thought that last joke was funny, and they'd be so thrilled that anybody would ask them their opinion, and I realized most executive producers and showrunners are so distant from everybody else. I bump into cameramen and sound people once in a while and they all say it was one of the best experiences they ever had. It all was really close to me. When you get canceled, it's so sudden and so final. I have endless amounts of mixed feelings about the whole thing. It's nice to talk about ILYK once in a while, but it really does bring out how many mixed feelings I have about it. I guess that's good.

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On his biggest regrets with the show

Yunno, I'm really proud of the show, but I also have a load of regrets. I have big regrets that I didn't go with Fox. They would've stuck with it. There were certain episodes that I thought of in the second season that I wish I thought of in the first season. I had so much juice on me that I probably could've gotten anything on the air, and the first show I pitched after ILYK was kind of like an ongoing dark comedy about the last good guy on earth who accidentally, by the end of the first episode, is arrested for murder. It was like David Lynch meets Airplane!, and I loved that show so much. I wish I would've come up with that idea first because I could've gotten anything on at that point. Once ILYK got canceled, I didn't have quite as much prestige around me, so I pitched that show, and oddly enough, ABC was the network on the verge. They were really into it for a while, then they backed off.

On how great Mehlmanthinks L.A. truly is

Everybody's got these crummy stereotypes about L.A. The fact of the matter is, first of all, it's not like New York really has any moral superiority anymore. All of Manhattan is basically hedge-fund people. All of the cool people have been pushed out. They're living in New Jersey. Soon all of the cool people will be moved out of Brooklyn, too. They'll be living in the Bronx and Queens Village. At least the people who come out here, they come out here with dreams. L.A. is a great place. People are dreamers out here. They're not all about just making money. Maybe they are a lot about attention and things like that, but if they're going to get it they have to turn out something good. They have to be creative. It's better than a horde of people going to business school and getting their job from hedge funds and becoming obnoxious millionaires. Fran Lebowitz, the ultimate New Yorker, she said it's not that she doesn't hate L.A. as much, but it's just not that much different than New York anymore, so she doesn't feel as negative about it. That's kind of a big admission from somebody like her.

On his TV work not being his main career

I always thought that journalism was where I was going to be. Writing a novel would've kind of been the ultimate of my career path. I'm sure it helped somewhat, but I think Seinfeld was a detour of my career path. When I publish a story or an essay in The New York Times, it's really more of a thrill for me than writing a script. There's something so exciting to me to be in The New York Times.

On having a lot of balls to do standup

It doesn't take as much balls as it seems. It's pretty much that everybody says it takes balls to get up there, so everybody else is buying in. Everybody talks about how hard standup is; granted, I don't really have much at stake. So when I go up there, I'm completely calm. I'm not nervous about it. I'm not worried about bombing or anything like that. If I bomb, I bomb. What the hell. Sometimes I want to be successful enough to where I just can say, "You know what? Standup's really not that hard. I don't see what the big deal is." That would be gratification enough for me. Even with Jerry's [Seinfeld] show about the cars and the comedians Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, it's like how many shows do we really need about comedians talking about their careers? I mean, I've really seen enough. I don't even watch that. Shit, I love Jerry, but Jesus, really?

On how his legacy will always be "yada yada"

To get that out of the first paragraph of my obit, I'd have to jump in front of a bullet and save the president. I guess that's something to shoot for.

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